


The Da Vinci Effect

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair wakes up in a left-handed world</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Da Vinci Effect

As he stared into the mirror, studying his reflection, he felt ever so slightly narcissistic. And yet he knew that everyone - well, everyone in societies that possessed them - regularly looked at themselves in mirrors.

Women did it when they arranged their hair, when they put on their makeup. Men did it when they shaved.

It wasn't impossible to shave without using a mirror - just incredibly difficult to do it without suffering cuts. Hell, even with a mirror cuts were... not necessarily frequent, but certainly not infrequent.

Of course, the invention of electric razors had helped - but even with an electric razor, it was necessary to look in a mirror to make sure that all the stubble had been removed.

He really envied women their bristle-free faces.

After all, it wasn't as if beards served any useful purpose. Sometimes in the past he'd had to go two or three days without shaving, and still remembered the itch. And he had a pretty heavy growth - he really needed to shave twice a day, which wasn't always possible. This evening, with a date arranged, he had carefully made time to shave before going out.

With a sigh he put his razor away, and patted on some aftershave. He picked up a comb, and began to comb his hair, watching his left-handed mirror counterpart doing the same.

He shook his head, mildly amused by the whimsy as he imagined the left-hand world on the other side of the mirror. How would he, as a right-handed individual, fare in a left-handed world? Probably about as well as left-handed people managed in his world.

He glanced at the time. Oops! If he didn't get a move on, he'd be late...

***

Returning home some five hours later after a not particularly enjoyable evening, he went straight to bed. He was tired - Morna had proved to be surprisingly difficult to entertain, she hadn't been interested in even a mild session of making out, and he hadn't suggested seeing her again. He'd have had more fun and less expense staying at home and watching TV (even though there wasn't much worth watching - one reason he had chosen that evening for his date. If he could call it that.)

He woke with a start and blinked, bleary-eyed, at the clock. 7.16.

7.16? God, he'd slept through the alarm!

And he'd an early morning lecture to give. He had barely three-quarters of an hour to get to the university.

He scrambled out of bed, skipped his usual shower, shaved - with his growth of beard, he couldn't save time by letting the shave of the previous evening serve him - dressed quickly and rushed out, pausing only long enough to make sure the door was locked before racing down the stairs.

About to jump into his car, he stopped, realising that the steering wheel was on the left hand side, not the right.

What the...

He stepped back and looked at the car again. Yes, it was definitely his, the number was right... but left hand drive? And then he realised that everyone was driving on the wrong side of the road.

Well, he had to get to the university... He moved round the car, unlocked it, got in... fumbled the key into the ignition and set off. Carefully. More than glad that his car was an automatic. Not sure how he would have coped with a gear stick on the wrong side.

Driving on the wrong side of the road was... surprisingly difficult. He had to fight the instinct that tried to pull him to the left. It was with a sigh of relief that he turned into the university grounds and made his way to the car park.

He glanced at his watch. He'd be in time, but only just.

Hurrying in, he made his way to the lecture hall; he reached the podium, pulled his notes from his bag and began his lecture.

Still a little shaken, he concentrated on the lecture notes for two or three minutes, then as he began to get into the swing of it, he looked up and the first time since entering the hall, actually looked at his students.

They were busy taking notes... all writing with their left hands, and writing from the right hand side of the page to the left.

Everyone? Mirror writing?

He had definitely fallen down a very weird rabbit hole!

How could he teach properly if he couldn't write something on the blackboard, as he often did? And he couldn't - not off the cuff. It wasn't that he didn't think he could mirror-write if he had to - since he could read something fluently upside down he knew there was no reason why he shouldn't be able to write back to front, but he would need time to practice.

At 2pm, with his last class dismissed, he pushed his notes into his bag and headed for home. Normally he would have stayed in his office until late afternoon, working on lesson plans, marking papers, but on this strange day all he wanted to do was get home.

He drove cautiously, once again unable to relax, the handling of the car unfamiliar. Amazing how often he drove on automatic pilot, he thought as he went. Normally everything about driving the car was automatic, his reactions instinctive. On this day he was only glad that at this time in the afternoon the roads were relatively quiet; no emergency arose, no traffic problem that would involve quick thinking reared its head.

Arriving home, he parked carefully, locked the car and walked up to his house. 

He went to put the kettle on, and the tap wouldn't turn. Huh? And then he thought about it, tried turning it the wrong way, as if he was turning it off... and was rewarded with a stream of water.

He made himself a cup of tea, deciding that although he'd had nothing to eat all day he really wan't hungry - everything was too off balance - and took it to his usual seat in front of the TV, pausing on the way to switch it on and finding that the control was on the wrong side... where it would be most convenient for a left-handed person.

God, what had happened to him overnight?

Picking up the remote, he flicked through channels, seeing programames that might normally have interested him but which on this day didn't draw his attention. He wanted something to distract himself but everything he saw was twisted into awkwardness by being the wrong way round. After a few minutes he hit 'standby', and finished his tea.

He should really practice mirror writing...

His eyes drooped shut...

***

The alarm woke him.

Huh? His last awareness had been of sitting in front of the TV, feeling oddly sleepy. When had he actually gone to bed? 

Well, he had plenty of time this morning. He got out of bed, showered, shaved, dressed, went to the kitchen... and stopped, looking at the taps, afraid to try turning them on. He took a deep breath, reached out, turned... and breathed a silent sigh of relief. The tap turned as normal.

While the kettle boiled, he went into the living room and checked the TV. The controls were on the correct side.

As he ate breakfast, he wondered about the previous day. Had it happened, or had he - who seldom remembered even dreaming - simply had a very vivid dream that for once he was remembering?

Breakfast finished, he washed the dishes, put on his jacket, picked up his bag and made his way carefully down the stairs. At his car, he paused. Everything was reassuringly normal.

Getting into the car, he set off, heading for the university.

**Author's Note:**

> This could almost count as an original story, but although he isn't actually named in it, I did have Blair in mind when I wrote it.


End file.
